I dispute that there is strategy in point-and-pox spellcasting. They roll some dice, usually weighted nicely in their favor, at my Fortitude and than I'm out of the fight 'til someone 'gets around to it.'
This is the same suicide-strike tactics that sometimes plagued 3.X. An enemy caster has zero reason to act like it exists outside it's encounter, so it's got just as many reasons not to be as big a hindrance as possible. I generally don't kill for it's own sake, but the shaman who sprays around crap like that is the shaman who arrives in the cauldron with their lungs bashed out through their spine.
Err, sorry. Didn't mean to be so vitriolic. And it's unfair to categorize the locals that way. There is a little, but it's fair (balancing priorities is part of the fun), and it could be far more.
The problem is the basic Caster Conundrum. Them who cause the problems also get to be the solutions. I'm 1.6, I've got a 21 Fort, I should be doing ok...? No, not really.
Part of it is surely systems mastery -is a 21 Fort 'acceptable' for 1.5-1.9 combats? I don't actually
know. I took my +2 Defenses bump, should I have torpedoed my mental stats to try to put a spike in my defenses? My to-hit is 19.5 -three ranks, 3d10. Should I have taken my skill increases sooner? I hit a low 20's Avoidance pretty regularly.
Seems to be ok, though I can forget Disarming and Guarded Attack is more of a problem then a solution. These are surely things with which I struggle.
Actually, let's look at that. If my Gladiator decides to Guarded Attack I lose a d10 and pick up 4 to my defenses. This could be a good counter-action to getting blinded, but the problem is timing. I never know when I'm being targeted. I know when the Shaman will be casting, but not at whom. It
might be the one I'm banging on, but it might also be a buddy who's waiting for his other friend to step away so he can hex me without a penalty. And very importantly, I'm not contributing anything while I'm turtled up. My chances to score a hit have gone from "average roll" to "on a Crit," and he's still one decent roll from taking me out for a while.
Maybe there should be a Defensive Dodge mechanic? Eat like 4 ticks, 4 recovery to go into GA retroactively (but before the roll total is announced)?
I'm also at a disadvantage -the classic disadvantage, really. He can leave my threatened area at will, and I'm always catching up. And has been said, it's Save-or-Suck. I really dislike how Crits tend to work out -very long odds, and Standard enemies who have more than one wound make the idea fairly moot.
That's the core of it all, right? As a melee basher I have to get in range, and smack my target around. The Shaman just has to hit my Fortitude once, and I'm done. It's being generous mechanically that I'm not caught in the d20 quagmire of just locating my target before I even try the -6 to hit. I've been there; I don't care how "realistic" it is -it's misery.
And it's only going to more broken. As the tiers climb the cannons will evolve past Glass and into Glassteel, and the Martial type will be even less likely to correct that save-or-suck problem without help. And then there's Ward of Shielding.
Wow.
Edit 2: found my book! Oh. Guarded Attack only affects my Avoidance. Well, nevermind!